Three years ago... the long path to trial for Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes was getting underway in earnest as motions were flying fast and furious.
The District Attorney’s office started off with motions requesting an independent psychiatric evaluation of both Harlow and Joe, and a request to include Justin Hensley’s previous testimony at trial. Interesting, Hensley recently showed up asking a question on the Cobra Killer Facebook page.
Attorneys for Joe Kerekes, three years ago this month, gave every indication they were headed for trail. They made their fourth request to sanction prosecutors, requested to move the trial out of Luzerne County, and to have a separate trial from Harlow Cuadra.
Team Kerekes also sought to prevent prosecutors from using any statements Joe made to coppers down in Virginia Beach upon his arrest on murder charges. They also sought to block the contents of any conversations reharcorded at a San Diego, California beach, and the contents of any evidence seized from Kerekes’ e-mail account and Virginia home. They also wanted evidence of any prior criminal history for Joe shieled from jurors.
As we now know, Team Kerekes went 0 for 7 on all seven motions filed.
It was all an exercise in motion writing anyway – Kerekes taking a guilty plea and avoiding a trial.
Harlow Cuadra’s attorneys also kept the typists and courthouse recorders busy filing separate motions to move any trial out of Luzerne County or to have an outside jury brought in because of pre-trial publicity, and to separate his case from Kerekes. Cuadra’s lawyers also sought to block photographs of the victim, Bryan Kocis, kept from the view of the jury because they could be inflammatory.
Like Kerekes, Cuadra sought to block prosecutors from using any statements Cuadra made to police because he was questioned while in custody but never informed of his rights. Moreover, they attempted to block recorded conversations of Cuadra at the beach kept out of trial because the interception violated the law and Cuadra’s rights. Finally, they attempted to block presentation of evidence seized from Cuadra’s Virginia residence and e-mail account kept out of trial because it was obtained with invalid warrants.
Cuadra won a partial victory on one count – victim photographs were limited – but suffered a devastating loss with not only the admission of transcripts from the beach where Cuadra made incriminating statements, but also transcripts of the same.
A technical motion from Cuadra to have all the charges against him thrown out because prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence at a preliminary hearing was wishful thinking from the start – and was promptly tossed.
